A schmooze about Jewish education brought to you by The Lookstein Center

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Is Book Banning Acceptable?

This year's winner of the Newbery Medal, a prestigious award in children’s literature, was Susan Patron for her book "The Higher Power of Lucky" and it's causing an uproar in libraries across the USA. On the first page of this book about a 10 year old girl appears the word "scrotum", and it is this word that has reopened the debate on what constitutes acceptable content in children’s books. Librarians around the country have been threatening to ban the book because they feel that the language is inappropriate for children.

From the The NY Times article"Ms. Nilsson, [a librarian] reached at Sunnyside Elementary School in Durango, Colo., said she had heard from dozens of librarians who agreed with her stance. “I don’t want to start an issue about censorship,” she said. “But you won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature.”